Here on Myrtle Beach this Easter morn, the Sun has risen. A Mimosa “salud!” this Easter morn, Old Sol!

It IS a Lie – and destructive – to insist that Myths are literal.

To assert that Mithra, or Zeus, or Thor were physical human beings immediately registers those Mythical beings in the crosshairs of rational scrutiny.

“When and where did they actually exist and undergo those fantastic adventures? Where’s the evidence?”

Millennia ago, Faith and Science split as Religious Authorities, to build power and shape nations, realized the observable cosmos (science) had to be anthropomorphized to be believed and accepted by uneducated masses.

In Transactional Analysis terms, (“Part II - CAN WE TALK”) from time immemorial, it’s, “We are the Parents. We KNOW. You are the uneducated Children. You don’t know. We are powerful. You are not.”

Why? Because there is no contemporary or eyewitness historical record of this supposed major figure. The Gospels were written nearly a century (and more) after Jesus’ supposed life, death and resurrection.

King Herod? A relative nobody? Plenty of contemporary proof HE existed.

As Christianity coalesced around dogma and began to be forced on the global Roman Empire, questions about the historicity of Jesus, as with older deities like Mithra, persisted and grew.

The ossuary of Peter, supposed brother of Jesus, “discovered” a couple of years ago? The ossuary carbon-dated to the period, all right; but the carvings on it were proved to be contemporary forgeries. Another scam on the antiquities market and the religiously gullible.

The motive behind these fabrications is: prove the myth by making it physical. THEN everybody will believe it, conform, obey, avoid eternal damnation – and we can control the world.

It’s worked for a long time.

What’s changed? The PARENT-CHILD transactional model. People aren’t ignorant and uneducated any more. Majorities cling to PARENT-CHILD traditions because Time moves slowly. But growing minorities know better – know more in larger numbers than ever in history. To be informed is just a click away.

It was clear at the outset that Christianity was entirely derived and constructed in every detail from pre-Dynastic Egyptian sun worship – which is to say Nature Worship (reverence for) the awe inspiring mathematical intricacies of our physical solar system – and beyond – including complex and arcane phenomena like the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Great Year.

So Christianity rapidly and inevitably splintered from science (which threatened and still does to reveal its true origins and destroy its power – with the Contantinople and Nicean Councils in the 300s, CE.

Christianity is a continuing myth, based on similar and far older myths, originally constructed and enforced to unite and control the Roman Empire and eliminate all other religious belief systems and authority.

As an ADULT, however, you dismiss parts of Christianity’s “collective unconscious” myth at your own loss, severing communion with humanity’s oldest, richest, continuous mind-body source.

The apparent weakness at the heart of religious faiths is that, if they are not literally and physically true, they are considered hollow lies and their believers fools.

But that isn’t true either.

Ironically, it is religious literalists who are terrified their faith will fall apart if the Shroud of Turin is a Medieval forgery: if the myths aren’t physical.

Without that shroud, that splinter of the True Cross, that ossuary, faith is lost, they fear.

Simply, that is idol worship. It’s about as far from the inner reality of experiencing God, or All That is, as you can get.

Instead of communing with God as Matthew 6:6 suggests – privately in your closet, shutting the door behind you – ALL organized religions seek to rob you of that most transcendent personal experience and establish themselves as the middlemen – at a price.

Here’s the BBC’s documentary take back in the ‘80s. Ignore the helmet-hair on host Derek Partridge. The information is fact. ‘Course, it’s nearly two hours long, so only the choir will watch it.

This stuff used to take years of determined research to uncover, if ever, so successful was Christianity at suppressing it.

This information separates the girls and boys from the women and men in any contemporary discussion of Christianity and religion in general. (As does familiarity with Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason.”)

I’ve never known a brain tumor patient to insist on 2,000 year old surgical techniques in O-R.

I’ve never known a religionist to insist on anything BUT 2,000 year myths to relate with God.

I have NEVER known anybody to actually study the ORIGINS of the religions they so vehemently “believe” with such certainty.

Those dogmas they want to force on the rest of us? Don’t look too closely or start questioning.

“Bible classes” train better parrots. Serious questions and discussions based on outside sources – contradictory facts and arguments about Myths vs. Lies, the supposed historical existence of Jesus, the ancient Egyptian Astro-theosophic origins of contemporary religions, the astronomical origins of Christmas or Easter or the Cross itself? Those questions are never even raised in Bible Class indoctrination.

Thomas Paine, again, nails it.

Followers of Krishna also claim he was historical, yet his advent predates that of Jesus by hundreds to thousands of years. If we assume both are historical, and both are teaching nearly the identical thing, why should we not go to the source and become Krishna followers? Here we see clearly the ugly head of cultural bigotry, when the Christians claim their godman superior to one already in existence that is virtually identical. Why not go with Krishna? Because he was not of the "right" ethnicity. The question is moot, however, since both characters are mythological and, by the arguments of the Christians, should then be dismissed. However, we must not dismiss the Mythos upon which they are formulated, as it is true revelation of the workings of the cosmos.

YOURS is the only one religion of 30,000+ around the world that ISN’T brainwashing. YOURS is the only one that’s really true.

We get it.

Are you catching on how PARENT-ADULT-CHILD ego-states work in real life? Look around the world at the wars, the pettiness, the pollution, the irrational hate, the now-irrelevant nationalism – and speak up, Adults! The human family is dysfunctional. Time for rehab.

By now I’m back in my lawn chair on Myrtle Beach bonding with the pan-Atlantic Easter morning sunrise, emptying the thermos of Mimosas and pondering the Mormons and the Catholics sinking some $83 million in California to legislate religious discrimination against same-sex couples through Prop. 8. Why not interracial couples? Why not Jews? (Oops! Sorry. Christianity already tried those and lost there too.)

But religious discrimination against same-sex couples won in California! (So far.)

$83 million to write religious bigotry into California’s constitution.

That’s the BEST Mormons and Catholics can do for American society with $83 million. Spend $83 million to deny full Federal equality to those Americans who don’t accept Mormon or Catholic religious dogma.

Religionists = PARENTS. Faithful = CHLDREN.

Where in the world are the ADULTS – the ones who’re supposed to be running things?

When was the last time you seriously talked with anybody about this stuff? Seriously informed yourself before voting to harm — or not harm – adults and children you disagree with religiously, who disagree religiously with you?

When did you last behave as an ADULT instead of a CHILD or PARENT?

Miss USA runner-up Carrie Prejean told judge Perez Hilton and the audience in TV-land that she wasn’t being “politically correct” but “biblically correct,” trying to justify her anti-gay bigotry.

Millions in many countries ARE serious about religious “honour killings,” Carrie. Women and gays top the victims lists, but. . . .

Biblically correct? Oh, Carrie, Carrie.

You HAD me at blond California Caucasian!

Then you blew it with, “I think I believe in opposite marriage because that’s the way I was brought up. No offense to anybody.”

You’re 23 and never “thought” to ask questions or look into anything?

You coulda been a contender, Carrie, and I’m just heartsick. (Well, as heartsick as I’m gonna get over a dumb 23 year old beauty contestant. Perez was right.)

Has American Democracy and our Republic – not to mention the Miss USA Pageant – come down to a religious litmus test based on dogma supposedly transmitted by an angry, bigoted, tyrannical, contradictory, genocidal God 2,000 years ago – who then shut up and refused to play any more?